


Beyond the Veil

by Nineveh_uk



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:12:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9442100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nineveh_uk/pseuds/Nineveh_uk
Summary: The Empress Elisabeth was dead and Death had come to claim her. But he wasn't quite the anthropomorphic personification that she had been expecting.





	

The Empress Elisabeth stood up, regarding the crumpled body with a dispassionate interest.

'All those years of lacing, and the knife couldn't catch on a bone when it mattered. Heaven knows, they caught on mine.' She stretched, and the figure became variously a little fatter and a little thinner as the image of the leather corsets faded. Had things in this place had sound, there would have been a rattle of hairpins. 'That's better. Perhaps I should have had it cut.'

She seemed to become conscious of another's presence, for she turned around, an expression on her face of radiant joy, rather incongruous under the circumstances of a messy and painful political assassination. It vanished as she saw the tall and shadowy figure that stood behind her.

It was about time. He had expected her a good half-hour earlier and she had thrown his schedule out. Naturally she did not apologise for having kept him waiting. That was royalty for you. She was looking at him now with an expression of considerable displeasure, as if he were a minor functionary apologising for some lapse.

'What are _you_ doing here?'

I'M SORRY, WERE YOU EXPECTING SOMEONE ELSE?

'Naturally I was. Where is he, the usual one? He's younger and less - ' the word 'skeletal' hung in the air between them, but she had a lifetime's experience in not saying what she thought, and so what she said was only, 'tall.'

AH

If a seven-foot skeleton could look awkward, Death would have done so. Here was another one, he might have known.

I'M AFRAID THAT MY COLLEAGUE IS UNABLE TO ATTEND. HE HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY RECALLED FROM SERVICE FOR - RETRAINING.

It was the same old story, getting too personally involved. It never ended well on either side.

'I see.' She looked disappointed, and like someone used to disappointment.

I'M SORRY.

'What happens next?'

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

'I'm the Empress. They told me choirs of angel would be waiting to usher me to heaven. I was never very convinced of that. After all, the same people told me that it would be wonderful to be the Empress. And,' she looked around at the black sand beneath the blacker sky, 'I see that they haven't turned up.'

NO

'What happens next?'

THAT DEPENDS ON YOU.

She looked disconcerted at this, so many people did. Then she suddenly smiled. 'You mean, it isn't laid out for me? I can choose? Freely?'

IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING. OF COURSE, IN ANOTHER MANNER OF SPEAKING YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE SO.

She looked down at her old self and said quietly, 'Once I wanted to be adored.' She stretched her arms and straightened, and said with an imperial graciousness, 'Thank you, you have been most helpful. You may go now.'

She stared intensely into the vacant air and a shape blotted out the cold stars. A young man in uniform, with a high forehead and indecisive face. She looked at him critically for a moment, before the image winked out. Another man took shape, older, bearded, with a travelling bag and a bizarre stringed instrument at his feet. He lasted a little longer before she turned her head and he vanished like the first. Then another figure, this one rather more familiar to the watcher. A young man with golden hair: beautiful, strange, uncomprehending. He was definitely in need of retraining. He reached out a hand to her, almost as if afraid, and she smiled kindly at him before shaking her head as he, too, disappeared.

She did not turn her head, but spoke to the audience she knew remained despite dismissal.

'I thought I wanted nothing more than annihilation, but that would be far too easy. I think that I should like some time to myself. Really to myself, to be on my own without other people. And then, perhaps, something to _do_.'

Death looked at her. She was tall and although slender - which was certainly no disadvantage in the role - of an athletic carriage. It seemed unlikely that she would fall in love with her charges. And there was a vacancy.

TELL ME, he said, DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE ANY GOOD WITH A SCYTHE?


End file.
